To the naked eye, Troy Buckley appears to have a stoic approach as a baseball coach, someone whose slow walks to the pitching mound as the Long Beach State pitching coach always carried the importance of, say, Winston Churchill approaching Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta.

But inside the new Dirtbags head coach is an emotional man who let that part of that persona slip at his introductory news conference at the Pyramid Tuesday.

After saying he was humbled and excited, he looked over at his three kids sitting at a nearby table – Thea, Casey and Maggie – and his voice cracked and he needed a pause to gather himself.

“I tell my players not to be emotional, and here I go,” he said. “I’m fortunate to be their father,” he said. “They’ve had challenges, and while no more or less than anyone’s children, their concerns are real important to me.”

Buckley then shook off the emotional sign.

“I don’t know how good of a father I’ll be the next 30 or 60 days,” he grinned. “I’m going to be busy.”

It’s heartening for LBSU baseball fans to know the man entrusted with the job replacing Mike Weathers has such feelings about his family, because the Dirtbags have been a family of sorts since 1989. The last two years have been a strain on that family with unexpected subpar seasons.

Buckley was the obvious choice to eventually succeed Weathers, so much so that he was guaranteed that when he returned to the university this season after two years in pro ball with the Pittsburgh Pirates. That didn’t make the moment any less humbling.

He thanked just about everyone associated with Long Beach baseball, the university, his family, and all of his coaches and teammates during his college and pro careers, with a special nod to Dave Snow, who hired him in 2001, and Weathers, who succeeded Snow and made Buckley his top assistant. “I have huge shoes to fill,” he said, “and I plan to work my tail off filling them.”

Buckley talked about his hiring in 2001 as someone outside the Dirtbag sphere of influence.

“All I had was an outside view,” he said of his arrival. “I had a Long Beach hat and a Long Beach State shirt that Dave gave me for when I went recruiting, but I wasn’t a Dirtbag. I had no sense of entitlement.

“We always tell players that just because they signed a Letter of Intent doesn’t mean they’re a Dirtbag. I had to work to get there. It’s sort of a resolve you have to have. I understand that about Dirtbag baseball and what makes it special.

“I want to get us back to that. Anyone who comes to play here has to want to be here, and we don’t want any player, no matter how good they may be, if they don’t understand what that means and what it will take.”

Buckley was an All-American catcher – the 1988 West Coast Conference Player of the Year – at Santa Clara, and was named to the conference’s 50th anniversary all-time team.

He was drafted by the Minnesota Twins and spent six years in the minors with the Twins, Reds and Expos. He was a superb defensive catcher but chose to end his playing career in 1996, at the age of 28, and move into coaching.

He was a minor league coach with the Expos for two years and returned to Santa Clara as an assistant from 1998 to 2000. In 2001, Snow hired him, and he stayed at Long Beach until the Pirates opportunity came along in 2008.

During his six years as pitching coach, the Dirtbags were nationally ranked and became a fountain of pro pitching prospects. Eight pitchers on his staffs from 2002 to 2007 reached the majors, and 26 different pitchers who studied under him were drafted.

“I couldn’t say what we will do will be any different,” he said. “The philosophy is pitch well, play good defense and manufacture runs, and that’s what we didn’t do well enough this season.”

Buckley hasn’t made any decisions yet on the status of the current coaching staff for 2011, other than to say he has a large pool of candidates that includes coaches with both college and professional experience. He will focus on that and recruiting for 2010 and beyond for the next few months.

“We have challenges,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have left Pittsburgh if I didn’t think this program could win like we have in the past.”

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